The card, like most base cards from Heritage, offers an ‘above the shoulders’ close-up of Harper. But, it does offer quite a different style than the normal posed portrait that has long been the trademark of the set.

Have a look:

See what I am talking about??

I wonder how much Brylcreem went into this look…. If you don’t know what Brylcreem is, Google it!!

Obviously, the style of the Gypsy Queen brand is a vintage design with lots of intricate details in the frame of the picture on the card.

For me, Pedroia is a player that fits the mold of a player that would play in the era in which this card was originally produced. He is one of the very few that would probably fit in perfectly in any era of the sport.

Notes From His 1975 Season: Martinez appeared in 80 games for the Royals in 1975. He hit just .226 with 51 hits in 226 at-bats. Of his 51 hits, 9 were doubles, 2 were triples, 3 were home runs, and the balance were singles. He drove in 23 runs while also scoring 15 times. In the 80 games he played in, he played catcher in 79 of them. He made 8 errors in those 79 games.

Notes From Career: Buck Martinez was a solid defensive catcher. He caught 1,008 games during the course of his career. He has a career fielding percentage of .984 with just 70 errors in 1,008 games. Martinez has a lifetime batting average of .225. He has 618 career hits with 321 RBI with 245 runs scored.

Million Dollar Question -How Many Short Prints Is Too Many Short Prints??

As a team and player collector, I don’t have the same worries that a set builder has. Especially if said set builder is trying to put together a set of cards by starting with the most fun method – the ripping of packs.

Lately, as I have gotten into collecting more modern players I have started to have to deal with short prints. And it is starting to bug me. Especially the high volume of short prints that seem to be coming more and more common in the widely collected sets.

Between the 2014 Topps Heritage and 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen releases, both sets featured short print cards of Jose Fernandez. And since I am building Miami Marlins team sets while also collecting singles of the reigning NL Rookie of the Year, I am needing to buy two of each Fernandez card that is featured in a Marlins team set.

That’s four total cards, four total needs – ALL Short Prints.

While still affordable (I have already made my purchases to get all of them) it did take the fun out of putting together the team set. I could piece it together by hand after ripping through packs or I could buy the whole team set complete but pay more for the added SP’s or I could land in the middle and buy the team set minus the SP and then shop again for the SP another time. And then buy another one so I could land the same card for my player collection.

I don’t know about you, but this drove me a little nuts. It’s definitely more to keep track of and a lot more of a headache since my ultimate goal is to stay on top of these new releases while also sticking to my budget.

I don’t believe that I am alone on this as I am certainly not the only team and player collector out there having to deal with all of these extra Short Print cards being published. Seriously, in a 350 card set, why do 50 have to be limited in production? That’s a large percentage – 14%.

I’d rather see exclusive limited edition stuff put into today’s sets for the case breakers to go after than for 14% of a set to be part of a limited print run.

I keep an eye on all newly listed baseball cards featuring Jose Fernandez that appear on Ebay. This allows for me to get a sense of what is hot and what is being sold for high prices. It also allows me the chance to grab some cards that I normally would not seek out.

The Topps Tribute set is one of those brands. I don’t seek them out due to the possible prices they’ll be selling for and also because I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment by being outbid on ‘higher end stuff’ due to my strict budget.

So, you could imagine my amazement when I was able to garb this card from the 2014 Topps Tribute set of Jose for a very low opening price.

Yep, I scored this bad-boy for just $1.99. And that price included shipping!!